Remember "the Canadian caper"? When Ayatollah Khomeini was in power in Iran, a gang of students attacked the US embassy and took a large number of hostages. A small number of US diplomats managed to evade the students and lived in fear for their lives for a few days, until they were covertly given shelter by the Canadian embassy, led by Ambassador Ken Taylor. At great risk to themselves, Taylor and his staff (and family) kept the Americans safe until a plan was put together to get them all out of Tehran, by providing them with fake Canadian identities. Once the Americans were away, Taylor and his staff also fled the country before the balloon went up.
As an aside, it was a miracle that the Iranians did not rumble what was going on, as it was an open secret in Ottawa. I vividly recall a mid-level official at the Department of Finance, with whom I used to deal, dropping heavy hints about "what a great job Ken Taylor is doing on behalf of the Americans in Tehran". How many others must have known?
In any case, Hollywood has now got around to making a movie about the whole affair: Argo, directed by and starring Ben Affleck. And guess what? The role played by the Canadians, without whom none of this would have been possible, has been virtually airbrushed out of the frame. It's now a rip-roaring thriller in which the CIA, turned into good guys for once, drive the whole rescue themselves. By all accounts it's a great show and an early runner for the Oscars, but it's raised more than a few hackles north of the border. Ken Taylor, now in his late 70s and living in New York, was given a special screening and voiced a few concerns, to which Ben Affleck responded by amending a brief narrative screen at the end of the movie -- when everyone is standing up and putting their coats on -- to give Canada just a smidge more credit. Merci, Ben!
Does any of this matter? I mean, we're all wearily accustomed to the American mass media rewriting history in order to put more bums in seats. But let's consider an earlier example that has a particular resonance right now: the War of 1812, which began with a last, ill-fated attempt by the newly-formed United States to grab Canada from those pesky loyalists. Know much about that? If you're American, chances are the only thing you might be able to summon up is a folky little number called "The Battle of New Orleans".
You know the one -- "In eighteen-fourteen we took a little trip". Yes, the war dragged on for two years, even though the main issue was settled much earlier; the reason the entirely inconsequential skirmish in New Orleans made it into song was that it took that long for the American side to scare up a victory. Prior to that, an alliance of British, Canadian and native forces had inflicted a series of defeats on the invaders all around the Niagara region. Further, the British had captured Detroit and even sallied up the Potomac to set fire to Washington, just to show they could.
If all of this has been largely written out of history Stateside, be sure nothing could be further from the truth in Canada. My new hometown of Niagara on the Lake bristles with Bicentennial flags (you buy them at the municipal offices -- very Canadian!) and just this past weekend there was a re-enactment of the pivotal "Battle of Queenston Heights". The CBC pitched in with a factual but irreverent documentary "War of 1812: been there, won that", which is unlikely to show up any time soon on PBS.
These days, Queenston is best known as the Canadian side of one of the three bridges that carry traffic between the US and Canada in the Niagara region. Appropriately, the tone of the Canadian remembrance of these events is very much one of celebrating the subsequent 200 years of amity between the two countries. But there's a lesson for Ben Affleck here: you can try to rewrite history to make your team look like the good guys, but the good guys have very long memories.
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